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30 October, 2010

The Relief

Morning - Day 2The Defence of Wilson's Wadi

With the Taliban offensive well under way, the forces at Qandahar Air Base are stretched to breaking point hunting down Taliban artillery sites. Despite this British command insists on sending a relief mission to Arghandab consisting of a Viking IFV with a hand-picked Royal Marine section aboard.

Small relieving column arrives, but the route is littered with IEDs

The EOD Officer advances towards the first of the IEDs - but the British section leave him without any support and he attracts a lot of small arms fire

His armour is not tough enough to leave him unscathed and the Viking drives alongside the seriously wounded man

The Viking and a fireteam lay down suppressive fire and bundle the EOD officer into the back of the vehicle. A group of Talbian, not liking the odds, scarper around the corner, but are caught by reaction fire from the outpost awaiting relief

Marine fireteam clears the left flank

WMIK arrives from the village. It turns right to try to clear that flank and bring the relief column through safely

Taliban reinforcements arrive - right behind a British fireteam! A second surprise awaits them as an IED hits them immediately - killing one and lightly wounding another

The IED team is spotted and is lucky enough to survive the fire and take up a new position

Lone RPGer takes aim at WMIK - the WMIK take substantial damage, with its main weapon and drive shaft knackered

More Taliban arrive behind the British fireteam on the left (they now have the attention of over 20 fighters all in close range)

The British fireteam attempts to escape but are surrounded - the WMIK is now a mobility kill

Taliban group try to cut off last few British escaping as the Viking has hightailed it gunning down the IED team and making some rather spectacular manoeuvres

But WMIK crew get behind cover and to safety

*****

A bit of a catastrophe for the relief column - 4 dead and 2 seriously wounded and the fire-team on the left flank which was surrounded were all taken prisoner after a point blank firefight.
The Taliban win 18-11 and British confidence for the rest of the day is seriously hit ("We are not going to last 18 minutes, old bean...!")